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Burning Bush
Cinematic television continues to thrive around
the world, bringing some of cinema’s great
directors and feature-film production values to
home viewers. The best of these can hold their
own by any measure, with audiences devouring
them in broadcast, download and DVD formats.
Here are two world-class examples of when small
screen series are of such quality they deserve to
be seen on the big screen.
Hell Is a CIty
Sun 16 Jun 2:00 PM AGnSW
PG
UK|1960|98mins|InEnglish
Director, Screenwriter: Val Guest | Producer: Michael Carreras | Cast: Stanley
Baker, John Crowford, Donald Pleasence | Print source: British Film Institute |
Rights: Tamasa Distribution
Manchester detective Inspector Martineau (Stanley Baker)
is the sheriff of his northern beat: respected by the local
criminal element (and even loved by the odd barmaid). He’s
rough round the edges, cuts a bit of slack but isn’t bent.
The one part of his patch he can’t master is his
disintegrating marriage. Then the news gets back that
nasty piece of work Starling (John Crawford) has broken
out of jail and is heading north. Val Guest was British
cinema’s complete journeyman, working in every genre in
over 70 movies. He directed often, but never the right sort
of films to secure his reputation. Alongside his The
Quatermass Xperiment (1955) this is the best example of a
filmmaking sensibility that when expressed, was
surprisingly hard-boiled and cynical. Guest and Baker’s
Martineau is one-off, overlaid with the gloom of the
Lancashire moors.
Screens with Tomorrow’s Saturday
RobbeRy
SAt 15 Jun 12:30 PM AGnSW
PG
UK | 1967 | 110 mins | In English
Director: Peter Yates | Screenwriters: Peter Yates, Edward Boyd, George
Markstein | Producers: Michael Deeley, Stanley Baker | Cast: Stanley Baker,
Joanna Pettet, James Booth | Print Source: University of North Carolina
School of Arts Maring Image Archives | Rights: Tamasa Distribution
The Great Train Robbery of 1963 has always spun off
countless dramatisations. One of the first, this one
remains the best by being utterly cold to what nearly all
subsequent movie stories of the robbers have tried to do:
find sentiment and pity in their subsequent fate. The film’s
producer Stanley Baker plays a character loosely based
on the mastermind behind the robbery, and it’s also a
parade of the most charismatic and pock-marked
character actors of the British screen of the 1960s and
’70s. Director Peter Yates’ style is cool, procedural,
verbatim: the robbery’s recreation was timed to each
nerve-wracked minute from court transcripts. The film
had considerable US success – and received one of
British noir greatest compliments: when actor Steve
McQueen saw its opening, white-knuckle, Jaguar v.
Jaguar car chase, he knew he had his director for Bullitt.
Screens with A Warning to Travellers
PenanCe
ShokuzAi
Fri14Jun6:00PM DoQ3 PArtS1&2
Fri14Jun9:00PM DoQ3 PArtS3&4
Japan | 2012 | 270 mins | In Japanese with English
subtitles
AuStrAliAn PreMiere
Director: Kiyoshi Kurosawa | Screenwriters: Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Kanae Minato
| Producers: Tomomi Takashima, Yumi Arakawa, Nobuhiro Iizuka | Cast:
Kyôko Koizumi, Yû Aoi, Eiko Koike | Production Company: Free Stone
Productions
Japanese master Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Pulse, Bright Future,
Tokyo Sonata) made the magnificent, disturbing Penance
for Japanese broadcaster WOWOW, and it then went on to
screen at the Venice and Toronto film festivals. A master of
horror and suspense, and an astute observer of Japanese
society, Kurosawa brings his considerable skills to this tale
of murder, guilt and vengeance. Tragedy strikes a small
town when a young school girl Emili is abducted and killed
by a stranger. Her body is discovered by four friends who
were playing with her at the time. The young girls, terrified
and traumatised, are unable to identify the abductor.
Crazed with grief, Emili’s mother Asako (Kyoko Koizumi)
condemns the girls and insists that at some point in the
future they pay a penance of her own choosing. Fifteen
years later, Asako visits each of the girls. The incident has
scarred each of them in different ways, but Asako still
demands their penance, triggering tragic events.
entire series $30 (concession $27)
buRnIng busH
horící ker
SAt8Jun5:00PM DoQ3 PArtS1&2
SAt 8 Jun 8:10 PM DoQ3
PArt 3
Czech Republic | 2013 | 240 mins | In Czech with
English subtitles
AuStrAliAn PreMiere
Director: Agnieszka Holland | Screenwriter: Šteˇ pán Hulík | Producers: Tomáš
Hrubý, Pavla Kubecˇ ková | Cast: Tatiana Pauhofová, Jaroslava Pokorná, Petr
Stach | World Sales: HBO Europe
Renowned Polish director Agnieszka Holland (Europa
Europa, the Oscar®-nominated In Darkness, The Wire )
created this beautifully made three-part drama for HBO
Europe. Revisiting a pivotal time in Czech history, Burning
Bush begins with a shocking act. January, 1969: student
Jan Palach sets himself on fire in the middle of Prague to
protest Soviet occupation; he dies four days later. Burning
Bush explores the aftermath of Palach’s sacrifice,
government attempts to discredit him, and the struggle of
his family, together with a brave attorney, to defend his
legacy. Though focused on this personal tragedy, and using
the space afforded to her by the format, Holland brilliantly
captures the transformations occurring in Czech society at
the time, the spirit of resistance of the people and the
gradual resignation in fear of harsher persecution. With a
top-notch cast, exquisite cinematography and production
design, and its moving portrayal of a struggle against
injustice, Burning Bush makes for captivating viewing.
entire series $30 (concession $27)
tIme WItHout PIty
SAt 15 Jun 3:00 PM AGnSW
PG
UK|1957|85mins|InEnglish
Director: Joseph Losey | Screenwriter: Ben Barzman | Producers: John
Arnold, Anthony Simmons | Cast: Michael Redgrave, Ann Todd, Leo McKern,
Peter Cushing | Print Source: British Film Institute
David Graham (Michael Redgrave) is a writer whose public
success can no longer conceal self-destructive alcoholism
and frayed family relationships. Now his estranged adult
son Alec sits on death row for a crime he refuses to deny,
although probably didn’t commit. Graham well understands
Alec’s motivation: it’s the only way to get back at his old
man. Searching for a reprieve Graham re-traces the
witnesses amongst his son’s circle of charming but
superficial connections (including Leo McKern as Alec’s
father substitute – and the father, too of the murdered
victim). But it slowly becomes apparent that Graham is
really trying to prove his own guilt. Joseph Losey’s other
British noirs in the ’50s were unconventional, but still about
stock cops and robbers. Filled with counting-down clocks,
self-reflective surfaces, mirrors and Redgrave’s twitchy
face, this is more existential and alienated.
Screens with Watch Your Meters
neveR let go
SAt 15 Jun 10:30 AM AGnSW
M15+
UK|1960|91mins|InEnglish
Director: John Guillermin | Screenwriter: Alun Falconer | Producer: Peter de
Sarigny | Cast: Richard Todd, Peter Sellers, Elizabeth Sellars | Print source:
British Film Institute
As dreary post-war Britain gives way to swinging ’60s UK,
a travelling salesman needs a car. John Cummings
(Richard Todd) over-extends his credit to buy a Ford
Anglia. Then it’s nicked just days later. Job, marriage and
self-esteem at stake, he stumbles into a car rebirthing
racket run by Lionel Meadows (Peter Sellers). Cummings
has bitten off far more than he can chew. Yet a stubborn
rage keeps him banging his head against the criminal
order. This is a film made against all sorts of types.
Richard Todd was a keeper of the stiff upper lip in
post-war British cinema; but here it trembles with self-pity
and humiliation. Peter Sellers’ role in British noir was
typically as an Ealing little man, but here he is a
monstrous sociopath who can’t understand why Todd’s
annoying little man won’t just go away.
Screens with Coughs and Sneezes
SYDNEY FILM FESTIVAL 2013
SFF.ORG.Au
44 bRIT NOIR